Analysis

In picking on mines Australia's luck may run out

Australia is often called “The Lucky Country”.  Blessed with abundant minerals, an agreeable climate, sensible politicians and a relatively small and highly-skilled population, they have done rather well out of the world economy.  Until now.

On Sunday, 2 May, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that he would be implementing a 40 percent tax on mining company profits in order which, he claims, will raise some $11 billion in two years. 

Greece, Goldman and finding the Greater Fool

"If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker,” says Mike McDermott in the movie, Rounders.

Gamblers are careful to ensure that there is someone less experienced or more gullible at the table than they are so that, when things go pear-shaped, they can unload their most speculative punts on them.

Are markets incompatible with democracy?

Protesters in Greece carry banners reading "IMF and EU are stealing a century of social progress" and "Take the money thieves and not the workers".  Greeks are not alone in feeling that markets wag the democratic dog. 

Feeding the hungry with freely transferrable bank accounts

"We used aid money to buy arms," says Aregawi Berhe, a former Ethiopian militant when speaking to the BBC recently.  As much as $95 million of the $300 million raised for the victims of the 1984 to 1985 Ethiopian famine is alleged to have been spent on funding conflict.

A CIA report in 1985 concluded that, "Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes."